December 2015

October 05, 2006

“After journeying through this desert we have arrived at Khwarizm which is the largest, most beautiful and most important city of the Turks. It has fine bazaars and broad streets, a great number of buildings... the city is in the dominions of the Sultan Uzbek who is represented in it by the great Emir called Qutludumur. It was he who built the college and the dependencies annexed to it. As for the Mosque, it was built by his wife, the pious Khatun Turabak.”

Konye-Urgench (what Ibn B calls Khwarizm) is today a ruin. There are no bazaars and no streets. There are no crowds and very few buildings. There is no cathedral Mosque - only the stump of a minaret remains - and no college, standing or otherwise. The once thriving city has returned to the earth and at first glance is now little more than scattered mounds of caked mud. Genghis Khan destroyed the city (and many others) because of a short-sighted decision by one of the Khorezmshah kings, Mohammed II, who ruled from Urgench. Ibn Battuta relates the story and it is worth the re-telling in his words, since the story is historical fact.